Horn's Path, Claws in the Night
by Manshiro
Summary: It should have been a way to kill time, satisfy his curiosity, but it changed his fate. How will the young man deal with the different world? What gears has his arrival set into motion? Rated T for fighting scenes and language, might change later on.
1. Chapter 1 - Departure

**Chapter 1**

Disclaimer: I do not own 12 Kingdoms; all characters belong to Fuyumi Ono and the respective right holders. Original characters of this story belong to me.

* * *

The humid midsummer air paired with his barely ventilated apartment made him sweat so much that his clothes were already completely soaked by noon. The small room he had holed himself up in for the last week was filled to the brim with multiple scientific instruments, a small tower of empty instant noodle packages and a lone, almost withered plant in a simple, brown pot. As he arranged the last mirror of an apparatus he sat down and let out a huge sigh: „Finally, with this everything should be adjusted just right for a test run..."

Looking down at his drenched shirt, he sniffed lightly and then muttered as if to mock himself: „But first I'll take a shower." With a faint smile of satisfaction on his face he made his way through the thing he worked on for the past 3 months, nonchalantly throwing his drenched clothes on a pile of dirty laundry. Shortly after he left the room, the noise of water droplets falling on ceramic was coming from the door the young man left through.

* * *

To understand what meaning lies behind the man's fixation on the strange apparatus taking up his whole living room we have to go back 3 years and nine months in time, when the man had just completed his twenty second year and went on a trip through Southeast Asia:

As a young man who had just finished his bachelor's degree in physics and a bright future laid out in front of him where he could practically chose what further path in his education he wanted to take - not so much due to his academic results but due to physics students being quite few in numbers - he fell into a deep depression. Troubled with what field he would specialize in, his mind was in conflict about what to do combined with a small voice in his head telling him that no choice he could make would really change a thing.

With every passing year of his youth the world became more restricting, new laws in all of the more civilized countries undermined freedom of speech and created a social structure where one could only rise to power by sucking up to the ruling parties and bribery was expected if one wanted to get into a good job position.

To get a break from these suffocating decisions, he decided to go on a trip through Southeast Asia, since it was the only place he could afford that didn't put the same restrictions on him as his own country and wasn't filled with religious extremists. "What a place has this world become since my childhood," was what he thought to himself while he placed the reservation for the flight, knowing that in the closed off world he lived in, there were only two choices for him: Either he would spend his life unable to change a thing and do nothing of importance or he would succumb to the temptations of wealth and power and turn in a wicked existence like those he despised so much at the moment.

Running away from the hopeless truth that would loom in his future he set foot on a plane to one of the megacities on the southern hemisphere.

The tropical heat hit him like a truck when he left the air conditioned plane and the sun shone on him mercilessly as if it wanted to burn all his thoughts about the future away. "I could imagine living here," was what he thought when he stepped out of the airport. He fastened his backpack and setout for his very own little adventure.

But as reality is a harsh mistress, it didn't go as well as the young man had planned. Robbed on the day after his arrival, lost in the vastness of the roaring city, getting distraction from the problems in his future was the least of his problems.

As he walked through the back alleys he had wandered into carelessly, trying to find a way out, he thought about what he'd do next. When he passed a little, spooky looking antique shop that was seamlessly wedged between two tall apartment buildings he decided that after all he had been through today, asking for the way in a shop that looked like you'd find frogs bottled up in alcohol, strange relics and all sorts of occult stuff would complete his hat-trick of bad vacation memories and he could fly home as soon as possible without any regrets.

"Excuse me?" Those words accompanied by the sound of a chime on the door echoed back at him from the dimly lit store as he entered. He only dared to enter after his eyes got used to the darkness inside the shop.  
From across the room furnished with several shelves he just entered, an old man looked at him and greeted him in broken English: "Hello, what you looking?"

"The way back onto the main streets," said the young man hoping he could avoid staying in this eerie establishment any longer than necessary.

As he had feared, the old man - he assumed it was the shopkeeper - suddenly looked at him a lot less friendly than before. "I no work for nothing, you buy something, I tell you way."

With a sigh, the young man ravaged all his pockets looking for whatever little money could be inside them. Luckily he found some change he got at the bar he went to last night. "What luck, they only stole my wallet. At least I have enough money to get ripped off by an antique dealer," was the sarcastic thought that went through his disillusioned mind at the moment.

Looking around the shop for almost half an hour, evaluating what of the thing displayed here would make a good souvenir so the money wouldn't be a total waste, or at least for something that would at least pass customs, he noticed a strange white horn.

A horn that looked like it was a mix of antlers and the horn of a rhinoceros, but of a sublime beauty that could almost be called regal. Its peerless white color and the apparent lack of scratches and the like made him doubt that this horn really was an antique. The almost unreal appearance of it made the young man think that this could pass customs easily if he just said that it was just a replica.

With something to his liking found and knowing the way back to the airport, he could find his hotel and spent his last night in the tropical paradise exhausted in his room. His sudden wish to return home and his persistence resulted in a heated argument with the personnel of the travel agency the next day and added more to his dissatisfaction with his trip, although he knew that this part was definitely his own fault.

This was how he ended his vacation and flew back, not knowing that this trip would be influencing his future in ways he couldn't even dream of back then.

* * *

Refreshed from the cold shower now clad himself in a way more befitting of his profession: A white lab coat over the set of normal clothes, a pair of safety goggles and sturdy shoes, because things falling on your feet always hurt. Slipping once again through the maze of gadgetry he headed for a box placed on what could have once been called a table, but seems to be no more than a dump for documents right now. The little casket was made of dark brown wood and carefully engraved with realistic picture of a one-horned creature.

Gently caressing the precious item he just picked up, the young man spoke to the box in anticipation: "Let's see what you can do."

Even with the little casket held in both hands he still could move quite easily through the jungle of cables, instruments, little mirrors, and tubes to reach the middle of his room, the center of the giant apparatus he had built. In the heart of the machine that he had put countless hours of work in was a pedestal just about the size of a saucer. In front of the pedestal he carefully opened the small casket that he held as carefully as if was made of glass with one hand.

"Now I'll get you to spill all your mysteries," the man said to the white horn inside the box, unable to hide the smirk on his face.

After taking the horn out of the box he placed it gently on top of the pedestal, took special care that it wouldn't fall of and break, retreated away from the center of the apparatus to a computer near the table, and sat down in front of it. After booting the computer and starting the programs for data acquisition he stood up once again, put on his goggles, and set his experiment into motion.

At the flip of a single switch several of the gadgets in the room began to buzz and bits of scattered light rays shot out of the apparatus. "Seems like everything's working fine," was the reaction of the content man to the successful activation of his device.

"Let's get to the measuring." With that, the man sat down in front of his computer once again and started to feed the machine instructions on what the apparatus behind him should do.

Hours later the man was still illuminated by the light of his screen when he looked up happily. "Now, just one to go and so far it went as expected: The results don't make any sense at all."

Outside his window the humid midsummer had brewed a rainstorm of devastating intensity. Not paying the weather outside his room any special attention, the man looked in the air a little while longer. With a shrug he returned to staring at the data filled screen and typed in the commands for the last experiment he wanted to do today, trying to get any form of response from the horn that made sense in a scientific way. In this case it meant shooting the horn with the biggest Laser.

"At the end of the intellect it still comes down to raw power," was the thought which represented his opinion of what he was going to do as well as what he thought of the world.

Pushing the enter-button with closed eyes, hoping it would somehow help getting results that make sense, he awaited the reaction, the sounds of capacitors discharging and data flowing into his computer. Silently a minute passed. After he felt the rush of stupidity for sitting down a minute with closed eyes and waiting for something to happen assault him.

Slightly angered by the failure he decided to look for the error, just something not plugged in correctly, was what he cursed himself for at the moment, forgetting to turn of the apparatus before entering it.

"There you are," was what he could utter in the crouched position between all the cables, trying to reach the back of one of the devices. His fingers found the culprit that ruined the flow of his last experiment for today and immediately pushed him into the socket.

The moment the plug's pins connected, a bright ray of red light shot out from one of the many box-shaped appliances and hit the horn.

A roaring sound filled the small room in seconds easily drowning the sound of the rain outside, a glaring light illuminated every corner of the room and even with his goggles on the young man couldn't see a thing.

The next moment everything went silent but the light didn't fade. He couldn't even see his own hands and neither could he hear himself shouting, he just floated in a space of silent white. The devices, cables and all the other stuff that was around him seconds ago were nowhere to be felt and he wasn't even sure where was up and where down.

After floating like that for around a minute the sound suddenly came back as loud as it was before and the light faded. What he could now see that he was falling towards the starry sky. Seconds later he felt like he hit a wall and lost consciousness.

* * *

The sound of waves.

As he slowly opens his eyes, he can see the line where the waves are breaking on the beach and feels the tide trying to drag him out towards the sea again.

Hastily he stands up and staggers away from the jet-black ocean. With his mind still in a daze the young man makes his way along the coast to a couple of rocks.

Trying to climb the rocks in his condition almost killed him once, but it was worth it, since he now knows that he has no idea where the fucking hell he is.

* * *

Note:

This is my first story, so I don't know how good it will turn out. I hope that I can tell a good story and maybe contribute to the image of world of the 12 kingdoms in some of your heads.

I will try to improve what shortcomings I have, but to that I have to know what they are. That's why every review I get would probably help me a lot, so if you like or didn't like what I wrote please review it.


	2. Chapter 2 - A Midsummer's Nightmare

**Chapter 2**

Disclaimer: I do not own 12 Kingdoms; all characters belong to Fuyumi Ono and the respective right holders. Original characters of this story belong to me.

* * *

"A forest behind me and an ocean in front..."

"Where the hell am I and how did I get here?"

Still dazed from his rough arrival, the young man is sitting upon a couple of rocks covered in barnacles.

After he had woken up half an hour ago he sluggishly had sluggishly dragged his body towards the rocks in the hope that from their top he could see anything familiar looking from their top or at least any sign of civilization. The only things that were man man-made he had noticed until now were what must have been things from his room that got swept away with him.

As far as his eyes can see there's only the big, dark sea he must fell haven fallen into before he lost consciousness on the one side, a forest of what looked like pine trees, and the stretch of beach he was on in between the two.

"Let's think about this logically."

"First off, I can say that I'm at no place I'm familiar with," he tells to himself.

"That can only mean two things. Option One, I hit my head while fiddling with the Test-o-meter and am now having one of the most vivid dreams I ever had, or Option Two, something strange has happened during the experiment sending me somewhere else. But it's not like I'm a fantasy character or anything, so I'll just wait for this to end."

"Hmm..."

"If this is a dream, maybe I can try to control it and do cool stuff like fly," are his thoughts as he slowly tries to stand up, almost slipping.

As he spreads out his arms, he repeats the word "Fly" several times inside his head and shouting it out load one time before taking a big leap from the top of the heap of rocks he stood on. A moment later the only the sound coming from him is a quiet whimpering.

Having made a brilliant belly flop onto the sandy beach from a height of about two and a half meters he once again losest consciousness.

As the mantle of night slides over the sky he slowly opens his eyes, cursing himself for doing something so stupid.

"Definitely not a dream..."

Slowly standing up, he notices that his head feels much less clouded now than it did before his little stunt.

"There's nothing better than a good fall to get down to earth again, huh?"

Brushing off the sand on his front he looks around once again, now with a clear mind. The forest and the ocean seem to continue endlessly in both directions. As his eyes wander, he notices that in the sky he could can see an unbelievable amount of stars. Even at the time when he went into the mountains as a child he didn't hadn't seen this many. Their reflection even showed shows in the jet black ocean and made makes it seem like the land he was on only was but an ephemeral plane between two galaxies.

"There can't be any kind of big city anywhere near here, or else I couldn't see so many stars," this thought is what causes a cold shiver to run down his spine.

After standing there, gazing at the sky for about an hour, paralyzed by the thoughts rushing through his head, his stomach informs him of the passage of time.

"Urgh."

Listening to the acoustic command of his body, he starts looking around the beach for anything edible.

Some of his stuff was washed ashore here, so maybe something he could eat did, too? If it was something like cup noodles or snacks, they could still be sealed, not completely soaked in saltwater and thus be edible.

"I really must have pissed off the god of probability or something."

Having found nothing but some clothing, a pair of sports shoes, three completely destroyed books, to his surprise even a metal box that was once a laser worth several thousand dollars, and lastly the Horn, laying on the shore as if the sand was only there to accentuate its presence. Everything was completely soaked; so the laser would most probably only be able to work as a paperweight from now on, the all the pages of the books were smeared with their own ink and the clothes plus shoes would have to be thoroughly washed soon or they'd start to reek. In comparison to all those things, the Horn was is still as unscratched and didn't doesn't seem to have taken any kind of damage from the seawater.

After quickly deciding to leave the dead weight behind, the young man faces away from the sea and sets foot into the dark pine woods, hoping to find something edible there.

* * *

Getting the trees a storm fell had felled out of the nearby woods always was always a time consuming and exhausting task, but this time it was especially bad since the storm that has had caused them to fall was had been a Shoku and fallen trees were one of the lesser problems. Rikkyo, being the eldest son of the local lumberjacking, had to lead and instruct his three younger brothers Kyoren, Shunran, and Sekkei in determining which of the fallen trees needed to be pulled out first and in getting them out of the thick underwood.

Their parents had to stay back home and deal with all the requests for material to fix what was broken during the storm.

Several shutters and a door were had been blown away, a reversed flowing river had damaged the water wheel of the mill, and that was just what people came for before Rikkyo and his siblings had left to get the wood.

As afternoon approached, the brothers returned from the woods just in time to see a man on a black and white horse take off of the main place of their village.

"That must be a Kitsuryou," said Sekkei, his mouth gaping wide and his eyes shining.

"That's right, it's your first time seeing one, right?" Kyoren asked Kyoren his little brother. "You were sick the last time one showed up here, so maybe there was something good for you in this shokuShoku, you got to see a Kitsuryou."

"It's thanks to the new unit of Kijuu-riders under the control of the General of the Left that we can see them sometimes now, ; when I was as young as you are now, we couldn't hope to see a Kijuu unless we went to a big city, but nowadays they fly around the country and report to the queenQueen," Shunran added Shunran with a haughty smile as if it had been his idea.

Placing his big hand on top of the head of his smaller brother, Rikkyo reminded Shunran of the fact that he had still worne diapers when the "White Hooves", as they are were being called, were had been founded.

After the man had become a black point at the horizon and Shunran had finished yelling at his big brother not to embarrass him in front of his little brother, they proceeded to bring back the wood they gathered to their house.

"Why was that man on the Kijuu here?" Sekkei asked Sekkei his parents storming in through the back entrance as soon as the brothers arrived at their home.

"Welcome back, boys," their mother greeted as she laid down the brush she was holding to to hug the young boy who came running at her.

"He wanted to know, what the Shoku destroyed, so he could tell it to the queenQueen. If he does that the queen Queen will surely do something to help us," the middle aged woman answered the middle aged woman the question of her youngest son.

"Where should we put the wood and where is father, mother?" Rikkyo asked Rikkyo his mother while leaning with his arm against the top of the door frame. His big body was a valuable asset for is profession but let him down when it came to luck with women.

"He went to check on some of the houses in the village. They might have gotten damaged, so it's better safe than sorry was what he said. I think he'll come back," replied the lean woman replied while playing with Sekkei. Her work consisted of managing the money of the family and doing artistic carvings on some of the furniture they produced, so she wasn't as strong as either her husband or her sons bout a lot more skillful with numbers and her fingers.

As night fell the whole family was reassembled at the dining table and enjoyed their meal, happy that the Shoku hadn't caused too much damage and would even turn into a bit of money for them.

Laughing about the small mishaps they or others had experienced over the course of the day, planning for tomorrow and looking forward to the work of the next weeks, they didn't know, that this would be the last such dinner they would be able to eat together.

* * *

Darkness.

The only thing illuminating his path is the sparse light of the stars.

As his eyes get used to the jet black forest he can discern more and more details.

Some tree branches were broken not long ago, so there must have been a storm here.

His hunger grows stronger by the minute but strangely it doesn't feel like his power or stamina areis dropping. He rather feels better with every growl sounding from his stomach.

He can smell the fresh fragrance of the pine trees and something from far away. It catches his interest.

"This smell..."

"That's the smell of fire," thinking this he speeds up, faster and faster to get to the origin of the smell.

But even after running for two hours he still hasn't reached his destination. Exhausted and hungry he sits down at the foot of a large tree. The vegetation has changed quite a bit. The pine forest he originally entered has turned into a forest of big leaf trees. The rocky, pine needle covered ground is now a smooth bed of old leaves and moss.

At the tree's foot he rolls himself up in his lab coat and uses the pieces of clothing he could had gathered at the beach as blanket.

Thankfully, the summer nights are blessing the land he drifted to with their warmth, so he doesn't need to worry about freezing. The Horn in his coat pocket clenched clenched tightly in his hand and still sticky from the dried salt water, the young man's consciousness slips away one more time, but this time into a peaceful, deep slumber.

* * *

The next morning, Rikkyo and his family woke up with the first rays of the sun to prepare for the hard work of the day. Today he would be going into the forest on his own to retrieve some more wood. Everyone else would be needed back home to cut the lumber from yesterday or to make new shutters from it.

When the small villiage started to become a little bit more lively, Rikkyo had already left for the northern woods equipped with an ax, a saw and a packed lunch.

* * *

In the late afternoon, a black horse with white stripes and a burning red mane elegantly landed on the terrace made of white marble. As soon as its hooves touched the ground its rider dismounted and a couple of servants rushed out to take care of the strained Kijuu.

The rider clad in armor proceeded towards the big main gate leading to this terrace with fast step holding a tome tightly in his hand. Rushing through the corridors, avoiding the attendants, officials, and servants, he made his way towards the royal study.

Although formally his duty was to report to the General of the Left, if there were any issues of pressing nature or such that needed special attention, he was to inform Kei-ou directly.

This shortcut for information to reach her was just what Youko had in mind when she had created the White Hooves. She wanted to never let something like the affair with Gaho and Shoko to happen again.

To make that happen she needed to know, what was going on in her country, so she devised a plan for a unit with the purpose of information gathering and put her trusted subject Kantai in charge of it. Of course she also liked the chance to get away from her repetitive work that it would bring from time to time bring. Discussing things like the budget of the royal palace, deciding on the dresses for her formal appearances and the like didn't count towards as the things she aspired to do as a ruler.

Since her inthronisation enthronement, a lot had already changed for her people.

Her first decree had ridden her populace of shackles binding their hearts, the good relationship she mentioned with the Kingdom of En had made the trade flourish, and her sole existence paired with forcing out the remaining Youma in the land had turned Kei into a fairly safe country.

Her reign had already lasted 15 years, all of her old "friends" from school must have found jobs by now and maybe some of them were already parents. After her tenth year as Kei's kingqueen, Youko gradually felt less attached to Hourai since she somewhere somehow knew that her old home was gradually becomigname a foreign world without a place for her in it. Her parents must have beenbe in their late fifties by now and she feared they could have already died.

As the time between her arrival in the twelve kingdoms and the present grew wider and wider she would eventually lose all each and every sense of familiarity with her old world and it would going to be for her, like it must have been be for En-ou. He was a Taika just like her, so he must have had some lingering attachment to Hourai like her, but imagining, how the world he had lived in 600 years ago had changed into the modern Japan she felt that Hourai was a chapter of her life that would soon be closed off for good.

Brooding over the documents containing the construction of a new dam in the Baku province she sat in her study. Clothed as casual as possible and as formal as her attendants deemed necessary, she just thought about whether she should lower the manpower put into hunting down Youma a bit to use it for the construction as someone knocked on her door.

Quickly changing her relaxed sitting position into a formal one and straightening out her clothing , - she had learned this skill to avoid her servants always reprimanding her -, and she answered:

"Enter."

On her command a man opened the door and lowered his head as he entered the room. He was a soldier of her information unit. Seeing him cheered her up immediately as she knew that it had to be something that would free her from her desk work for a short time.

"Speak up, what news do you bring?" she asked.

"A Shoku has occurred in the provinces Sen and Bu. I have reports form several locations depicting how severe the storm has hit them. So far it would seem that it was only a very small one but nonetheless a Shoku so we deemed it important." and And after a short time he asked his queen Queen who hadn't reacted to his report yet:

"What are your orders, Kei-Ou?"

After thinking about the current state of affairs Youko deemed that a Shoku certainly had priority when compared to the building of a dam.

"You did well to inform me. I want you to inform the General of the Left to ready a handful of mounted soldiers. I will personally venture to the scene and investigate the circumstances of the Shoku and let the soldiers file detailed reports of the damages to send appropriate relief. Now go forth."

With a look of confusion on his face the soldier proceeded to execute the orders of his queen Queen wondering, why she, a ruler chosen by Tentei, herself would leave the palace to investigate the aftermath of a storm out in the countryside, but put it off as one of the many inexplicable things the queen known as Sekishi would do from time to time.

"It's a storm that shakes the foundation of the world, of course it has priority," she thought to herself, justifying it for her to leave the palace and get some change from all the monotone paperwork she had to deal with all day. She came to understand why Shoryu did would behave like he did and would also try to sneak out of the palace from time to time, although it seemed like she still needed a lot of exercise to do it as smoothly as the king of En. Most of the time either one of her maidservants would spot her or her better half Keiki would find her. Either way she would get scolded for trying to leave the palace all alone and be put behind her desk again to finish the never ending stream of documents that needed her signature.

Much to her luck, her Kirin wasn't in the Kinpa palace and the servants wouldn't dare to stop her if she could give them an appropriate reason, so she wrote a short letter to Keiki describing the situation, telling him not to worry, and making him stay in the palace for the meantime and not come chasing after her. After she had finished writing, she laid down the brush and made her way to the dressing room which contained her casual and more practical clothing that wouldn't restrict her like the formal attire she often had to wear in the palace often.

Having arrived in her room, instantly three servants came rushing to her asking what she desired. Youko first ordered one of the maidservants to bring her the Daishito, the head of the Ministry of Earth and commanded the other two to bring her a fine set of clothing fit for leaving the palace and pack a more practical outfit that could be worn under armament.

The first of the three went on to go get the Daishito to come to her Her majesty Majesty while the other two looked at their queen with a questioning faces.

"Will you be leaving the Kinpa palace, your Your majestyMajesty? Does the Taiho know about this?"

"Don't make him worried, I am just going to investigate a Shoku that occurred, so I want you to hurry with the preparation. The faster you are the faster I will be able to return to the palace."

"But isn't that the task of your subordinates, your Your Highness?" asked the one of the maidservants trying to guess her queen's true intention.

"A Shoku is a big occurrence where two worlds overlap and Rankas can get lost in the process, so we need to know exactly how it affected the regions it hidhit," replied their queen while radiating confidence.

Unable to stop their ruler who could come forth with a plausible reason to leave the palace, the two maidservants gave up on convincing her to stay and instead put their efforts into preparing her as good as they could so at least her appearance would be regal while she was away from the palace.

After her servants had dressed her, the maidservant that had left to get the Daishito returned into the dressing room to report that she had brought him and that he was waiting in front of the door.

"Come in," Youko said Youko to the man behind her door while waving her hand at the three women, signaling them that they could leave.

"You know that you shouldn't call me to your dressing room, Youko," the gray mouse replied the gray mouse as it entered through the door, covering its eyes as a precaution. He was one of the few who dared to call Kei-ou by her given name form from Hourai and one of her oldest and best friends in the whole twelve kingdoms.

"Just don't make it such a big deal then."

"That's not the point, but what did you call me here for, shouldn't you be working now?"

"I'm doing exactly that right now. I'm preparing to go out to investigate about a Shoku that occurred in Sen and Bu, so I wanted you to inform Kokan to take care of things in my absence. And tell that to Suzu and Shokei, too, when they come back."

"Hey, hey, wait Youko, you can't just vanish and go on and adventure like this..." was what he started to say but had to complete his sentence differently because he knew that her look meant that there would be no changing her mind.

"but But you'll do it regardless, so it's nice that you at least let us know,." the gray mouse finished, the gray mouse clothed in a formal attire tailored to fit his needs as a Hanjuu.

"I will tell them under one condition, Youko, you have to come back in the next four days and you have to promise not to get into any fights." He knew better than to spoil one of the rare chances for Youko to get out off the palace and let some steam off. At least he could keep her out of danger if he knew where she went and made her promise not to fight.

"You're the best, Rakushun," the young looking girl said the young looking girl to her furry friend as she shortly hugged him and ran off.

His whiskers still vibrating a little, Rakushin quietly replied towards the direction in which she went:

"You really need to act more with more modesty."

* * *

A strange sequence of pictures and feelings, emotions and sounds is what makes up his dream.

The skin of an orange being peeled away, allowing a black substance to come forth from within. The black substance forming into many different shapes and collapsing at the end to create a single black drop that causes ripples in the uncolored background turning it into a vast blue sky that emits an overwhelming feeling of freedom followed by a hollow growl which slowly fades away.

Moments later he wakes up from the sound of rustling leaves near him.

* * *

AN: Puh, so this is chapter two to get onwards with the whole exposition of where we are and what happened since the canon storyline. I hope the jumps aren't too difficult for readers. I tried to extrapolate how Youko would do things and think it should be plausible.

If you notice anything that's off about them or doesn't make much sense please tell me, so I can look if I made a mistake or if it's wanted intended :)

After my last chapter I already got helpful feedback and I hope that you will continue to review my work and help my me at writing a better story.


	3. Chapter 3 - Awakening

**Chapter 3**

Disclaimer: I do not own 12 Kingdoms; all characters belong to Fuyumi Ono and the respective right holders. Original characters of this story belong to me.

* * *

His ears perk up as he hears the rustling of leaves near him. Abruptly opening his eyes, his eyes are fixed on a bush to his right.e stares at the bush right next to him.

His gaze meets thate gaze of a deer looking back at him in returnat him. Out of instinct his body moves. Toward the deer, without fear.

"This is prey," he subconsciously knows, "this is food."

Black silence fills his mind.

As his senses return to him, everything is already over. The deer's brown coat is soaked in a dark red tint and the once white spots shine like bright red eyes, staring at him. His hands, his t-shirt, and his face are covered in the lifeless mammal's blood. A big wound gapes on the deer's throat, almost as if a piece of it was bitten out by a large predator, its belly lacks a big portion and one of the legs seems to be missing as well.

Looking at his hands, he realizes, that they are not only covered in blood, but are also somehow different from before. His fingers seem to have become longer and his nails appear to be quite sharp.

The strength he can put into his grip does not even come close to what it was before and apparently his whole body is a lot more flexible than before, but feels as though it has always been that way.

His hands aren't the only thing that is undergoing changes, but his mind can't even properly handle a small portion of what is happening right now.

The dead deer, his blood smeared appearance, and this strange place he was thrown into are too much for him to rationally handle at once.

The big knot inside him that is telling that this is all just a dream, that he will wake up in a few moments continues to swell, making his headache even worse.

In a desperate attempt to reduce the confusing factors and protect the last bits of his sanity from crumbling, he hurriedly leaves the place of the massacre he apparently committed, hastily stuffing the clothes he used as a blanket into the pockets of his lab coat, and trying to calm himself down.

* * *

Clad in a tunic carefully embroidered with the pictogram of a Kirin on the front and a stylistic depiction of the twelve kingdoms, she still exerted a faint regal aura even as she took out her Sekko from the stables. Youko had bought it to have her own means of transportation, so she wouldn't always be forced to borrow one of Keiki's Shirei whenever she wanted to go somewhere, partially because the Shirei were loyal to their master and thus more often than not tattled on her to Keiki.

She had taken a liking to Youka, as she had called her Sekko, since then both their names would share the first character. Youko and Youka, Sekko and Sekishi. She had been amused by the idea and later thought that it would be a good way to mock the people in her court who were still thinking of her as an incompetent ruler, a red-haired child.

"Come on, girl. We're going to go on a little stroll through the countryside," she said as she petted the big, red tiger. Purring and pressing its head against her soft hand, the black striped Kijuu followed her master outside the stables onto a platform made of marble.

On the flat surface of this stone terrace, thirteen fully armed men in military uniforms were already standing and waiting for the half god with the appearance of a girl, which had just come of age who was their ruler.

Her presence alone protected the country from many natural disasters and stopped the flow of Youma coming into the country. But more than that, these thirteen men knew that their Queen wasn't just an ornament, sitting in the palace, reigning her people from above, completely disjoint from them. She was ready to risk her life for the sake of her country, had the willpower to fight even when she was on her own, without her social standing protecting her, and most importantly, they knew that the second Queen Keiki had chosen was a person who was willing to reflect on her own actions and continuously strived to improve herself and tried to bring her people to follow her in this.

All of them were men who that had first known her as the fighter Yosho, who wanted to save an old scholar from the grips of the tyrannical local lord Shoko and had to overthrow him in the process.

Knowing that these men were owners of hearts that didn't break under oppression and wanted to create a future that would be a little bit brighter for them and others was a big relief for Youko.

In the court and the army, she originally had had close to no influence and couldn't even bring one of her own vassals to justice who's crimes were obvious. After painfully learning this lesson, she set out to change this by putting people she could trust in various positions and after ten years her efforts were fruitful. She was sure that almost nobody who would scheme against her was left in the court, but at the same time took care not to tyrannically banish all those who opposed her as she wanted to keep those who really cared for her country in her court, especially if they had opinions that differed from her own.

Casting out everyone with different view on things would only lead to an environment of people bending themselves, which was exactly what she tried to abolish with her first decree. A Ruler ruler who didn't listen to his people and his vassals will at one point stop listening to his better half, the Kirin, and thus ruin his country.

She had experienced that firsthand with the King of Ko and heard about the King of Ho from Shokei.

To keep an open ear and and open heart for all of her subordinates was the task she thought Tentei gave to all rulers and she was determined to accomplish it.

"Are you ready to depart, Your Majesty?"

After mounting her scarlet Kijuu, the green-eyed ruler simply replied with a smile of excitement on her face: "Yes.".

Fourteen silhouettes slowly ascended from the white stone and took off with the first rays of the morning.

* * *

Three hours after he had eaten his lunch, the last tree for today had fallen and was pulled out from the undergrowth, so it was time for him to go home. Fixating a rope onto a tree he needed to pull back home, he thought of what he would have to do when he arrived there.

The heavy piece of wood behind him would make his return a long one, so he had a long time to think about what he would do later today, tomorrow, and it even allowed him to indulge in thinking about one of the village girls he had grown quite fond of in the past months.

As he came out of the forest, he smelled a scent he had only smelled this intense one time before. It was the time when he, his father and one of his brothers went into the woods. A tree didn't fall the way they expected it to and it fell right onto their father's leg. Crushed and pinned down by the weight of the fallen tree, it had been easy to see, that his father's leg was beyond what could be treated. Calling for help or chopping though the wood would have taken too long. Rather than leaving their father to bleed to death, Rikkyo made the decision to save his father's live at the cost of his leg. The metallic smell of human blood he had smelled that time was rushing once again into his nose.

Overcome with bad premonitions, he threw down all the tools he had taken with him, except for his ax, and rushed towards his village.

On his way to the village he already saw the lifeless body of his next-door neighbors on the fields.

This gruesome scenery caused his steps to grow faster and faster in the hope that he wasn't too late.

Lifeless streets awaited him as he entered the village. No living soul around, just bodies lying on the ground.

His house was empty; there were traces of a fight inside. Nobody was in his home, which made him feel relieved. He hadn't seen anyone from his family among the dead so far, so he searched through his house while calling for them repeatedly, hoping that they weren't here, making it a possibility for them to be still alive.

After looking through all rooms, he was certain, that there really was nobody, and especially no body, in his home, so he decided to return outside to look for anyone still alive who could tell him what had happened and maybe where his family was now.

As he reached the marketplace, he saw a single person in a strange white robe standing bent over a body. Wondering who that person was and hoping to get information from that person, Rikkyo ran towards and called out to the figure in white, but stopped abruptly.

The man in white had turned around and Rikkyo could see, that the man's white robe was tainted crimson.

* * *

"What happened?"

"What is going on with my body?"

"Where am I?"

Filling his head, these questions are gnawing at the last border that is keeping his sanity intact. In a state somewhere between drunkenness and a feverish delirium he wanders through the forest, trying to sort out his thoughts and cool down his head. The brown color of the tree trunks blur into an ever changing maze and flow into the green of the moss. His field of sight narrows as the borders of his view turn darker and darker. Just as his capability to see decreases, his mind fogs up in a swirl of white.

Not knowing where he is going, or what his body is trying to do, his steps steadily lead him towards something. Something familiar, something he finds pleasant. His body follows something he instinctively likes.

But what is it? The smell of food? No that isn't what he is following. The smell of civilization? No, that isn't it either.

As his feet come to a rest and his eyes at last focus on something, it comes to him as clear and obvious as if he forgot something like breathing until now.

"Of course, that's it. The smell of human blood," he whispers.

It is something he has liked for as long as he could think. Other people would often look at him with disgust or a plain lack of understanding for it. Whenever he fell down, pricked his finger with a needle or otherwise started to bleed, he stared at the part he hurt with a look of fascination and liked the taste of it when he licked his wounds to stop the bleeding.

Where most people didn't like to see blood, he finds the sparkling red more beautiful than artistic paintings from famous artists and wonderful music made by skillful composers.

Its taste which combines a somehow sweet, almost fruity flavor with the metallic taste of iron is something he counted among his most favored treats.

Seeing the scenery in front of him breaks the last mental shackles formed by getting scolded for his abnormal fixation on the red liquid of life.

In front of him, a scene that would make the stomach of most normal people rebel unfolds. Painted in red, the bodies of several human beings lie before him in a puddle of blood mixed with dirt.

Their bodies are cut up and their faces distorted in fear.

Barely beginning to realize the full extent of what lies in front of his eyes, he hears somebody shouting and turns around, towards the voice.

In about forty meters distance he can see a man with an ax in his hand staring at him.

They stand there without moving for a couple of seconds before the armed man's face changes from dumbfounded, to disgusted, to what can only be described as pure hatred. Just a moment later, the man begins charging towards him with his ax held high.

* * *

Her country had indeed noticeably increased it's liveliness. Regions that had been devoid of humans before were now being regained from the nature that was trying to take them back. Farmland was made usable again and a steady income of food now filled the kingdom's storehouses.

And from her position above the clouds she could clearly see that change. Every time she got to leave the palace, the world beneath the Unkai seemed more vibrant than before.

This change filled Youko with a feeling of pride and gave her hope for what would happen in the future.

After the Queen and her thirteen companions had ridden for half a day above the clouds, one of her guards informed her, that the first place they were going to visit would soon be reached.

Anticipating a little bit of contact with her subjects, especially with those this far away from the capital, her fatigue caused by all the paper work vanished.

Descending towards the small settlement that could be seen from the air, the mount of Kei's ruler was the first to notice that something wasn't right.

Next, the other Kijuu noticed that at the place their riders wanted to descend towards something was amiss and refused to lower their altitude. Their breath grew haggard, their nostrils trembled, their hair stoop up and they began restlessly pawing in midair out of fear of the thing, they felt was down there.

Unable to get their mounts to descend to the ground, Youko and her escorts were forced to stay airborne and look for the reason of the animal's' unrest from above.

From her position in the front of the group, Youko noticed that there was some movement down in the village after she was able to calm down Youka. She could make out two figures standing on the town square facing each other. Judging from their body size and stature she concluded that the two characters down there must be men. One of them was clad in normal clothing for a man from a small village, but the other one's appearance piqued her interest since he wore an overcoat colored bright white.

That kind of color of fabric was fairly rare to find in the twelve kingdoms as it was either made from the purest silk or dyed through expensive procedures, so the man was a little bit out of place.

But before she could continue with this train of thought there was already movement below her.

The plainly clothed man started running towards the man in white, wielding a long object.

* * *

Time slows down as the polished piece of iron is continuously drawing nearer and nearer to him, slower and slower as the head of the ax seeks to penetrate his body and end his life.

As every movement in the world seems to have stopped, he can look at his own reflection in the leaf of the ax.

His face is smeared with blood, the front of his body still dripping wet with red, and an expression completely unfit for this place is on his face.

He can see that he is smirking, making him look like a psychopath.

Why does he do that? Why is he standing here, looking like that?

As these thoughts cross his mind, the world starts to regain it's momentum and the ax once again tries to close the distance. Out of the most simple of instincts, to protect himself, he reflexively closes his eyes and aises his arms to defend against the tool about to end his life.

Kling.

Just that? He always thought that an ax ripping through human flesh would make a more crushing and grinding kind of sound. The noise he heard rather sounded like metal hitting armor or a piece of rock.

Was that the kind of sound a human life ends with?

As he arrives at this question, anticipatingseeing himself lie in his own blood, missing at least one of his arms, slowly bleeding to death, he opens his eyes.

What awaits him isn't the scenery of despair he painted out inside his head, but rather a surprise for him, and for the wielder of the ax.

He is still standing on his own feet as a single drop falls from the place where the ax connected to his arms. Mesmerized by the falling drop neither man dares to move. The drop falling down towards earth gets all of their attention. Being neither especially big, nor shaped in an extraordinary way, everything is normal about it; everything aside from it's purple color.

Hitting the ground and forming a round dot in the dirt, the drop releases the men from it's spell and their attention returns to the place the drop originated from.

Making a clean cut through the lab coat, the ax ripped through what seems to be a layer of skin. But rather than continuing to sever his muscles, tendons, and bones, the ax had stopped at a shimmering layer of scales beneath the skin.

The drop of blood originated from that point, no mistake about it, but as they are looking at it, they can't make out a wound it could have come from.

Just like solving a puzzle, the disconnected pieces in his head begin to line up and make sense to him.

A mysterious horn that doesn't make sense when researching it with normal methods, getting thrown into another place, probably another world, undergoing strange changes, and now a clearly inhuman body makeup.

Everything leads him to one conclusion:

He got thrown into a strange parallel world or something that doesn't play by the rules of his world and it somehow induced a change in him.

As the situation he is in at the moment becomes logical in a fantastical kind of way, the knot in his mind unties itself and he returns from confused, feverish thinking to a calmer and more logical approach to things than running blindly through the forest.

With a deep breath he decides on his next course of action.

* * *

A sudden attack and then silence. The fourteen mounted riders had no idea what was unfolding beneath their feet. Looking at the two men confronting each other, Youko noticed the circumstances. Several bodies lay on the ground, unmoving, some of them visibly bleeding.

In the face of this scenery, Youko was saddened and angered. Who could have done that to her people? Youma? Bandits? She didn't know, but was determined to find out who committed this atrocious act.

And the first step to achieve that was to stop the men fighting in front of her and inquire what happened.

"Cease your fighting!" She commanded them in her royal voice.

* * *

Devising a plan on what to do now, he is suddenly interrupted by a voice from above.

Above him and the man he is facing, he can make out around a dozen of what seemed like soldiers on flying horses and a red-haired woman on a flying tiger.

"Ok, so animals can fly here...,", is his first impression of the fantastic picture in front of him.

"But this is really bad, I'm here soaked in blood, surrounded by a mountain of corpses with an agitated villager and now there's even more."

"To talk my way out of this I would need a devil's advocate, so what other options do I have?"

"First: Let myself be caught. Bad idea, I'll probably end up dead soon if they think I did this."

"Second: Try to fight my way out. Tremendously outnumbered and unarmed I won't stand a chance, so again a bad idea."

"After all it comes to number three: Run as fast as I can."

At the sight of the airborne Riders wielding the flag of the kingdom of Kei, Rikkyo stood there struck with awe. The compelling voice of the female rider atop the red flying tiger made him shiver as she commanded to put away the weapons.

Obeying the order he was given, the grip on his ax loosened and it slowly slipped through his fingers to the ground, falling to the side as soon as its head hit the ground.

In exactly that moment a white flash passed his left side.

In front of him stood nobody anymore and half of the riders rode towards the direction the white flash had passed him.

After commanding the men to disarm themselves and the execution of said command, Youko felt relieved for a moment that this could be settled without any more bloodshed, but her expectations were betrayed, when the man in white started to run away as fast as the wind the moment the ax wielder let go of his weapon.

Swiftly ordering half her men to follow her, she started the pursuit in person.

Urging her still nervous Sekko to go deeper, she closed the distance to her target with big leaps and was only about 5 meters away from the man when her ride came to a sudden halt.

She could clearly see the reason for this a moment later.

"Dammit, they will get me, I'm not fast enough. Is there something I can use as cover? I need to get faster or they will catch me and then they'll be convinced I was the culprit behind that massacre. How can I get faster? Lean forwards and let myself fall towards earth, was it?"

Trying all in his might, he spares a small glance behind him just to see that his efforts showed no noticeable results. He could almost see each of the red tiger's teeth glare at him.

"I will not get caught here; I will not get caught for something I didn't do in a fantastic place like this. Faster, faster, come on body; give me everything you've got!"

Stealing a peek behind, his pursuers are even closer than before. In front of most of them, a woman clad in a beautiful piece of clothing, poses an especially high risk in his opinion. Long scarlet red hair and the smell of freshly fallen flowers accompany her.

"Am I a dog or why am I noticing something like her smell now," shoots through his head and a second later the feeling in his hands change followed by his feet, eventually his whole body feels different.

In reaction to the sudden rush of a funny feeling throughout his body, his view returns to the direction he is running in just to notice that he doesn't run with just his legs anymore.

* * *

As often as she had seen Keiki change, she still was surprised by what happened in front of her eyes.

The white figure gradually lost its human form and brown and red fur replaced the parts of skin that could be seen.

But what emerged was neither a white nor a black Kirin, but rather something like a tremendous wolf. Filling out the white clothes and visibly bursting apart his pants, the beast continued its escape unfazed.

With every leap it took, it widened the distance she tried to close before.

Her Sekko, still frozen in fear, allowed for no further pursuit as the beast got closer to the forest.

At the entrance to the forest, it turned around one more time, showing Youko the reason for her ride's unwillingness to pursue it.

A set of blinking white teeth, fluctuating lines of red on its face and two fiercely glowing red eyes were staring at her, giving her the feeling that she stood in front of an endless abyss of black.

Freed from the intimidating stare, Youko and her company were free to move again, but the beast had vanished into the forest.

Abandoning the pursuit of what she thought could only be a Youma, Youko returned to the city square where the other half of her companions had already landed and taken the other man into their custody.

A Youma of that strength has been rampaging around in her land without her knowledge? It was something that would make even her who had fought against many different kinds of Youma before hesitate.

She was sure that she wouldn't lose to a normal Youma or most humans, but without Jouyuu or more soldiers fighting against a strong Youma like that would most likely kill not only her subordinates, but also herself and plunge her kingdom into ruin once again, so pursuing it immediately was out of question.

So the only thing she could do now was to get as much information as she could from the only witness around. Sadly, the soldiers that remained had to report to her, that aside from the man who apparently wasn't here at the time of the attack, no one survived.

"But according to what he said, people are missing, and not just a few. It seems that most of the people that lived in this village are nowhere to be found," one of the soldiers reported.

Unable to do anything against the threat that vanished into the woods she decided that sadly there was nothing she could do against it right now.

Without a Shirei at her side she could use to inform Keiki in a short time or to take things as they were into her own hands, she deemed it best to return to the Kinpa Palace and plan on what to do next.

As she was about to order the retreat, one of her men brought to her a piece of the clothing the beast had lost in the process of its transformation.

"Your Majesty, this is some of the robes that... thing lost."

Astonished by what laid in front of her eyes, she swiftly took the piece of clothing from her soldier's hands and ordered the return to her palace.

With the mentally exhausted man called Rikkyo on the back of a Kitsuryou, Youko and the majority of her entourage set out to towards Kinpa Palace. The ones who stayed behind were to warn bordering village guards of the threat and try to track down the whereabouts of the Youma.

The mysterious man, his transformation and what he left behind. These things were causing Youko a headache by just thinking about the complications of what she feared was the case.

* * *

His feet or rather paws are taking him further and further away into the twilight of the setting sun. Free of his pursuers and overflowing with energy incomparable to anything he had felt before, his leaps get filled with joy. No amount of running seems like it could exhaust him and no kind of shackles seem like they would be able to hold him down.

He is free.

Not just from the soldiers following him. Not from the massacre that would without a doubt would be made his doing. Not from the small wish to return to his own world.

No, this freedom is something totally incomparable to those things.

Each and every thing tying him down is gone. From when to behave in what manner over the feeling of shame all the way to the innermost part of his being are gone without a trace.

The only things that are still the same are his desires and the deepest parts of his personality making up his self.

This before unattained state of freedom overwhelms him and compels him to vent the rush of excitement it gave him in the most fitting way he can imagine right now.

* * *

As the last rays of the setting sun touch the ground of the southeast province of the Kingdom of Kei, a roar shakes the earth, signaling the birth of creature unbound by the strings of fate like no living thing else in the Twelve Kingdoms, yet entangling the fates of many others.

* * *

AN: I was quite busy the last two months so I didn't really get around to finishing this chapter, so it sat around for the meantime, but I could finally finish it over the holidays.

At last the story starts to pick up a little bit and the preparations for the further plot are going quite smoothly, I think.

As before I'm thankful for every kind of feedback especially on whether I got Youko down somehow realistically or whether I'm ripping her out of character ;)


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